A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c18.24

c18.24

Of the sports and pastimes of the different classes of people, the inscriptions do not give us many authentic accounts of a detailed nature. The Rāṣṭrakūṭa Govinda III took part in a boar-hunt on the banks of the Tungabhadra when he was camping there after his conquest of Kāñchī in 804, and the Ganga Būtuga II's hound ‘Kālī’ died after fighting a boar. (A memorial was erected over its remains at Ātakūr and a gorava appointed to offer regular worship to it.) A ball game on horseback, much like polo, is said to have been the favourite game of the Rāshṭrakūṭa prince Indra IV. Paes states that, every morning before daylight, Krishnadeva Rāya drank gingelly-oil and exercised himself with earthenware weights and a sword till he had sweated out all the oil. He then wrestled with one of his wrestlers and after that went riding before his morning bath. There were arenas inside the royal palace in Vijayanagar where, for the amusement of the monarch and his court, fights between animals and wrestling matches took place, the latter sometimes among women. Gambling, racing, cock and ram fights were the pastimes of common people, besides the festivals and fairs of which there was no lack. Then there were peripatetic entertainers like the snake-charmer and troupes of acrobatic performers whose visits furnished much genuine amusement at very little cost. Picnics and folk-dances offered other means of diversion. The following account of what Pietro Della Valle saw in the streets of Ikkeri of an evening (in 1623-4) is of great interest from several points of view: